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Lambert,  William  Allen,  187A 

Religious  education,  and  For 
thp.  healine  qf^1;:]^e  church 


Religious   Education 

AND 
FOR  THE   HEALING  OF   THE   CHURCH 


BY 


{        FEB    7 


W.  A.  LAMBERT 


1916 


BOSTON:  RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

TORONTO:      THE   COPP   CLARK   CO.,   LIMITBD 


Copyright,  1915,  by  W.  A.  Lambert 


All  Rights  Reserved 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Religious  Education 7 

For  the  Healing  of  the  Church 33 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 


Religious  Education 

JOHN  GERHARD  in  his  Locus  XXIV  writes: 
"They  who  are  to  be  promoted  to  the  ministry  of 
the  Church  must  first  be  taught  and  trained  in 
schools.  For  since  the  fall  of  man  a  salutary  knowl- 
edge of  God  is  not  innate  in  man,  nor  is  the  sufficiency 
{iKavoTrj^)  required  in  the  ministry  given  to  any  one 
immediately  without  previous  instruction.  Therefore  if 
the  magistrates  desire  to  have  suitable  ministers  of  the 
Church,  let  them  have  diligent  care  for  the  schools.  The 
schools  are  the  seminaries  and  nurseries  of  the  Church." 
(ed.  Preuss,  6,  354.) 

An  analysis  of  these  sentences  will  show  us  how  en- 
tirely foreign  to  our  modern  American  conditions  the 
standpoint  of  Gerhard  is.  Gerhard  holds  that  the  mag- 
istracy and  the  ministry  of  the  Church  are  two  co-ordinate 
'hierarchies.'  State  and  Church  are  co-extensive  and 
divide  between  them  the  functions  of  government.  But 
the  State  must  provide  men  for  the  ministry.  The  schools 
exist  primarily  for  the  training  of  ministers.  A  com- 
paratively short  time  ago  this  was  the  theory  of  the 
Church  College  in  America,  and  in  the  minds  of  some 
people  it  still  survives.  But  the  Church  College  had  no 
connection  with  the  State  and  could  have  none,  because 
of  the  fundamental  American  principle  of  the  separation 
of   State  and   Church.     Gerhard's  statement  had   to  be 

7 


8  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

modified  so  as  to  read,  *if  the  Church  desires  suitable 
ministers  of  the  Church,  it  must  have  diligent  care  for 
the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  schools.' 

Gerhard  based  his  view  upon  Luther,  and  adds  Luther's 
second  argument  for  the  maintenance  of  schools,  although 
not  in  Luther's  name:  ''because,  according  to  the  philoso- 
pher, the  correct  training  of  the  youth  is  the  foundation 
of  the  State."  Luther's  words  are:  "Since  the  wealth 
and  honor  of  the  entire  city  and  the  lives  of  all  the  citizens 
are  entrusted  to  the  magistrates,  they  would  not  be  deal- 
ing honorably  before  God  or  men  if  they  did  not  with  all 
their  power  plan  for  the  prosperity  and  advancement  of 
the  city.  But  the  prosperity  of  a  city  does  not  lie  only  in 
the  gathering  of  great  treasure,  the  building  of  solid  walls, 
beautiful  houses  and  the  purchase  of  great  stores  of  armor 
and  ammunition;  indeed,  if  there  is  an  abundance  of  all 
these  things,  and  fools  control  it,  the  city  suffers  so  much 
the  greater  injury.  The  best  and  richest  prosperity  of  a 
city,  its  salvation  and  strength,  is  this:  that  it  have  many 
excellent,  learned,  sensible,  honorable  and  well-educated 
citizens,  who  in  time  may  gather,  hold  and  rightly  use 
both  treasures  and  wealth."  {Works,  ed.  Buchwald,  3,  13.) 

For  the  common  people  Luther  thought  an  hour  or 
two  in  school  each  day  sufficient.  "My  opinion  is  that 
the  boys  should  be  sent  to  school  an  hour  or  two  each 
day,  and  should  keep  right  on  working  at  home  the  rest 
of  the  time,  learn  their  trades  and  do  what  is  asked  of 
them,  so  that  the  two  go  hand  in  hand ;  for  they  are  young 
and  need  not  hurry."  (Buchwald,  3,  27.)  Thus  Luther 
anticipated  the  modern  idea  of  vocational  training,  with- 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  9 

out  burdening  the  school  with  it,  however. 

It  seems  strange  that  Luther  in  neither  of  his  treatises 
on  the  establishment  of  public  schools  speaks  specifically 
of  the  religious  education  of  the  child.  His  catechisms 
were  not  written  for  the  school,  but  for  'pastors  and 
teachers,'  as  the  preface  to  the  Small  Catechism  says,  and 
for  'house-fathers,'  as  the  headings  of  the  various  parts 
say.  Even  Gerhard  looks  to  the  ministers  and  not  to 
the  schools  for  the  religious  training  of  the  children. 

Furthermore,  Luther  nowhere  tells  how  instruction  is 
to  help  the  religious  development  of  the  child.  On  one 
point  he  is  very  clear:  "no  one  can  be  compelled  to  believe." 
(Buchwald,  3,  84.)  The  Catechism  itself  is  to  teach  and 
the  children  are  to  learn  from  it  "what  is  right  and  what 
is  wrong  among  those  with  whom  the  children  intend  to 
dwell  and  live.  For  he  who  wants  to  live  in  a  city  must 
know  and  observe  the  law  of  the  city  whose  benefits  he 
desires  to  enjoy,  whether  he  believe  or  be  at  heart  a 
rascal."  {ibid.  The  translation  of  this  passage  given  In 
the  Church  Book  and  in  the  English  Book  of  Concord  is 
not  accurate,  but  attempts  to  avoid  a  theological,  and 
partly  a  linguistic  difficulty.  The  Latin  translation  should 
have  made  both  clear.) 

Elsewhere  Luther  emphasised  the  teaching  value  of 
history.  "It  would  be  most  profitable  for  rulers  that  they 
read  or  have  read  to  them,  from  youth  on,  the  histories 
both  In  sacred  and  in  profane  books,  in  which  they  would 
find  more  examples  and  skill  in  ruling  than  in  all  the 
books  of  law;  as  we  read  that  the  kings  of  Persia  did, 
Esther  vi.     For  examples  and  histories  benefit  and  teach 


lo  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

more  than  the  laws  and  statutes:  there  actual  experience 
teaches,  here  untried  and  uncertain  words."  {On  Good 
Works,  Eng.  TransL,  i,  265f.)  He  complains:  "How 
greatly  do  I  regret  that  I  did  not  read  more  poets  and 
histories,  and  no  one  taught  me  them."  (Buchwald, 
3,  26.), 

But  of  religious  instruction  during  the  century  and  a 
half  after  the  Reformation,  Kabisch  gives  this  summary 
account:  "Preachers,  teachers,  parents,  children,  all  took 
no  interest  in  it.  Frequently  the  help  of  the  police  had 
to  be  called  upon  to  get  the  children  to  go  to  'Kinder- 
lehre.'  "  "The  best  that  can  be  said  of  this  instruction 
has  been  said  by  Wiese  {Der  ev.  Religionsunterricht  im 
Lehrplan  der  hoheren  Schulen,  S.  141):  "The  religious 
element  in  the  school  for  a  long  time  retained  the  char- 
acter of  a  drilling  in  the  chief  means  of  devotion,  Bible 
reading,  catechisation  and  Church  song.' "  (Kabisch, 
Wie  Lehren  wir  Religion?  284f.)  Life  and  interest  was 
brought  into  religious  instruction  by  the  Pietests.  Justus 
Gesenius  had  published  a  Bible  History  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  in  1658,  but  it  attracted  little  attention. 
John  Locke  in  England  suggested  the  use  oi  the  historical 
portions  of  the  Bible  and  the  preparation  of  selected  Bible 
stories  for  this  purpose.  (1693).  August  Hermann 
Francke  in  1702  made  the  same  suggestion,  but  included 
in  his  plan  of  a  Catechismus  historicus  historical  illustra- 
tions from  profane  history.  In  17 14  Job.  Hiibner  pub- 
lished 'Twice  Fifty-two  select  Bible  Stories.'  Some  Sun- 
day School  helps  of  very  recent  years  seem  directly  model- 
ed on  Hiibner's  precedent.     Hiibner's  book  flourished  for 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  n 

a  century,  until  Zahn's  Biblical  Histories  of  1831  sup- 
planted it.  And  the  influence  of  Zahn's  work  for  good 
and  for  evil  in  a  pedagogical  sense  lasts  until  the  present. 
(For  these  historical  statements,  see  Kabisch,  fVie  Lehren 
wir  Religion  f) 

Like  Luther,  his  followers  for  more  than  a  hundred 
years  had  not  raised  the  question,  how  religious  education 
influences  religious  life?  The  Catechism  contained  the 
essential  elements  of  the  Word  of  God,  and  the  Word  of 
God  in  a  mysterious  way  creates  faith  in  the  heart.  Hence 
they  did  not  go  beyond  the  Catechism  in  their  teaching. 
Even  the  Bible  Histories  were  introduced  only  as  illustra- 
tions of  the  Catechism.  "I  have  often  been  able  to  grasp, 
as  it  were  with  my  hands,  what  a  light  the  biblical  his- 
tories throw  upon  the  Catechism,  when,  e.  g.,  in  explain- 
ing the  fourth  Commandment  I  told  the  children  how  the 
priest  Eli  broke  his  neck  because  he  had  trained  his  children 
poorly,  how  the  untrained  Absalom  was  caught  by  his  hair 
in  the  oak  tree,  and  how  the  lost  son  at  last  had  to  eat 
husks  with  the  swine."  (Hiibner,  Preface,  quoted  by 
Kabisch.)  Here  again  we  have  a  thought  of  Luther  ap- 
plied where  Luther  apparently  had  not  applied  it.  For 
Luther  wrote  in  his  treatise,  'That  the  Doctrines  of  Men 
are  to  be  rejected':  "The  other  books  of  the  Bible  do 
no  more  than  give  the  instances  in  which  the  word  of 
Moses  was  kept  or  not  kept;  the  words  and  the  histories 
are  different,  but  the  meaning  and  the  teaching  is  one  and 
the  same."     (Buchwald,  2,  294.) 

•    When  we  come  to  a  Bible  study  for  the  sake  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible,  we  have  advanced  far  beyond  Luther 


12  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

and  far  beyond  Hiibner.  The  Bible  stones  taught  and 
illustrated  Bible  truths.  But  Hiibner  aimed  not  only  to 
put  the  truth  into  the  minds  of  the  children;  he  wanted 
to  influence  their  lives.  After  the  child  has  learned  the 
facts  and  has  been  taught  to  think  about  them  and  to 
learn  the  ethical  and  religious  lessons  contained  in  them, 
"we  must  not  fold  our  hands,  but  so  influence  the  will 
and  the  heart  of  the  child  that  it,  in  view  of  this  knowl- 
edge, may  choose  the  good  and  reject  the  evil.  This  is 
indeed  the  most  difficult  point,  since  this  is  where  the 
hypocrites  and  the  truth  which  is  in  Jesus,  rather,  what 
amounts  to  the  same  thing,  the  Christianity  of  the  mouth 
and  the  Christianity  of  the  heart,  separate."  (Hiibner, 
quoted  by  Kabisch.)  Hiibner  looks  for  religious,  not 
purely  intellectual  results  of  religious  education,  and 
agrees  with  Francke  that  the  means  to  reach  religious 
results  is  direct  admonition.  In  place  of  the  mysterious 
working  of  the  Word,  we  have  now  the  teacher's  efforts. 
Between  these  two  conceptions  religious  instruction  has 
wavered  since  that  time.  Our  present-day  Sunday  School 
literature,  and  even  more  our  Sunday  School  teaching, 
has  laid  considerable  emphasis  upon  the  direct  admonition. 
It  has  added  however  another  element,  which  is  foreign 
to  both  Luther  and  Hiibner.  Religious  education  is  to  be 
based  upon  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God,  and  is  to  bring 
to  the  child  the  whole  of  the  Bible  as  far  as  possible. 
Religious  instruction  is  to  be  instruction  in  and  about  the 
Bible,  to  which  is  to  be  added  a  knowledge  of  the  teach- 
ings and  usages  of  the  particular  Church.  The  child  is 
to  be  prepared  as  far  as  possible  for  active  and  intelligent 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  13 

Church  membership. 

In  America  we  have  had  so  little  experience  with  re- 
ligious education  that  it  will  pay  us  to  learn  from  Ger- 
many. What  has  been  the  result  of  religious  education 
there?  Religion  has  been  given  a  place  in  the  school 
curriculum,  has  been  taught  as  thoroughly  as  other 
branches  of  study.  Its  purpose  has  been  to  make  intelli- 
gent Christians  and  Church-members. 

'Upon  the  basis  of  facts  known  to  everyone'  Natorp 
regards  it  certain  that  in  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred 
cases  the  dogmatic  conviction  is  not  acquired.  And  Hans 
Richert  in  referring  to  this  statement  adds:  "And  the 
many  who  are  not  convinced  then  look  back  upon  the 
instruction  in  religion  as  a  provoking  deception,  a  crim- 
inal abuse  of  their  childish  credulity."  {Handbuch  f.d. 
Religionsunterricht,  I.)  Fritz  Mauthner  complains  that 
in  spite  of  the  religious  education  "really  religious  feelings 
are  very  rare;  even  rarer  are  men  whose  world-view, 
whose  fundamental  attitude  toward  life  is  essentially  re- 
ligious." (Quoted  by  Gurlitt,  Die  Schule,  15.)  Among 
theologians  Beyschlag  asked  years  ago,  "What  demands 
are  made  upon  us  by  the  observation  that  in  spite  of  the 
return  of  theology  to  the  Confessions  of  the  Church  so 
little  spiritual  life  is  manifested  in  the  congregations?" 
'(PRE^  23,  195^^)  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  'un- 
churchliness'  of  Germany,  the  large  parishes  and  small 
congregations,  the  growing  social-democracy,  the  spread  of 
monism.  Of  course,  we  may  ascribe  part  of  this  retrogres- 
sion, if  we  may  so  call  it,  to  the  criticism  and  liberalism 
of  the  universities.    But  this  has  not  affected  the  religious 


14  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

education  of  the  schools,  except  in  so  far  as  it  had  made 
the  position  of  the  teacher  almost  untenable.  The  teacher 
is  required  to  teach  the  doctrines  of  the  State-Church, 
not  what  the  university  professor  has  taught.  In  fact, 
the  teacher  has  less  liberty  than  the  preacher,  as  is  so 
bitterly  complained :  "The  teacher  is  in  a  far  more  diffi- 
cult position  than  the  preacher.  The  preacher  can  take 
out  of  the  Bible  text  what  he  wants  and  accommodate 
his  sermon  to  the  intellectual  attainments  of  his  hearers. 
If  the  teacher  wants  to  be  conscientious  and  not  merely 
repeat  empty  words,  he  must  adhere  to  the  content  and 
meaning  of  the  material  of  religious  instruction  as  given 
in  the  Bible,  Catechism  and  hymn-book,  and  make  that 
meaning  clear.  He  has  no  right  to  explain  the  words  in 
a  liberal  sense."  (Jahn,  Sittlichkeit  und  Religion,  306.) 
In  the  discussion  of  principles,  Reukauf  pleads  for  a 
greater  freedom  for  the  teacher,  and  says:  "In  the  case  of 
the  teacher  no  less  than  in  that  of  the  preacher  the  power 
of  the  organized  Church  is  limited  by  the  evangelical  con- 
science of  the  individual,  by  his  conviction  formed  by 
personal  study  in  the  Scriptures  upon  the  basis  of  the 
confession  of  Jesus  as  the  Redeemer  of  men.  Yes,  the 
evangelical  teacher  of  religion  even  has  the  duty,  on  the 
basis  of  the  personal  conviction,  "die  Schaden  der  Kirche 
zu  heilen,"  cf.  Palmer's  Article  'Kirche'  in  Schmid's 
Encykl.  des  gesamten  Erziehungs  und  TJnterrichtswesens. 
But  in  any  case  we  regard  it  as  not  only  practicable,  but 
as  a  necessary  demand  of  evangelical  freedom,  that  the 
Church  entirely  refrain  from  every  direct  supervision  over 
religious  instruction,  as  it  has,  e.  g.,  in  the  duchy  of  Co- 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  15 

burg  for  almost  thirty  years."      (Didaktik  des  ev.  Re- 
ligionsunterrichts  in  der  Volksschule^,  1 906,  p.  20.) 

Upon  the  older  view  of  the  dogmaticians,  that  the 
Word  is  efficacious  in  a  mysterious  way,  the  uncom- 
fortable position  of  the  teacher  could  not  harm  the  pupil. 
Surely  the  German  system  as  it  has  stood  for  years  does 
store  the  mind  of  the  child  with  Bible  texts  and  Catechism 
and  hymns.  If  the  religious  results  do  not  follow,  either 
the  theory  of  a  mysterious  efficacy  is  wrong,  or  else  God 
has  forsaken  His  Word  in  Germany.  We  cannot  blame 
the  Germans  if  they  prefer  the  former  explanation  and 
are  agitating  in  favor  of  a  reform  of  religious  education. 

When  we  examine  more  closely  however,  we  can 
readily  see  that  this  agitation  for  a  reform  of  religious 
education  is  only  part  of  a  larger  agitation  for  the  reform 
of  education  in  general.  In  Germany  as  in  America 
education  has  been  overwhelmed  by  the  demands  of  new 
knowledge  and  new  industrial  conditions.  At  least  yearly 
there  is  a  new  subject  which  urges  its  demands  for  rec- 
ognition ;  and  the  cry  that  our  schools  are  impractical,  that 
they  do  not  prepare  boys  and  girls  for  actual  life  is 
perennial.  Especially  in  America  we  have  almost  come 
to  the  point  of  not  educating  at  all,  simply  because  of 
the  mass  of  educational  material  brought  to  our  attention. 
Going  into  some  city  school  and  observing  the  constant 
change  of  studies,  the  rush  oi  work,  one  might  well  ask, 
What  is  it  all  about? 

That  is  exactly  the  question  which  German  educators 
have  come  to  ask.  They  must  find  some  definite  aim 
of  education,  which  will  help  them  to  find  their  way 


i6  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

among  the  many  theories  and  fads  concerning  the  content 
and  the  method  of  education.  At  times  it  may  have 
seemed  that  the  purpose  of  education  was  merely  the  pre- 
vention of  illiteracy,  the  enabling  of  every  man  and  woman 
to  read  and  write.  To-day  many  ask  of  education  only  a 
direct  preparation  for  a  life-work,  or,  to  put  it  more 
grossly,  for  making  a  living.  For  either  of  these  ends 
religious  education  is  a  very  poor  help,  and  might  be 
ignored.  But  ability  to  read  and  to  write  may  be  only 
ability  to  do  greater  mischief.  An  education  which  pre- 
pares directly  for  a  life-work  makes  of  man  only  a  ma- 
chine, not  necessarily  even  a  mechanic.  An  educator  can- 
not be  satisfied  with  either  aim. 

"The  best  that  parents  and  teachers  together  can  do, 
is  this:  To  lay  firm  foundations  in  the  pupils  on  which 
they  can  later  in  their  own  way,  in  the  battle  with  the 
world,  develop  themselves  into  ethical  personalities  of 
character."  (W  Rein,  Das  Kind,  II,  3.)  In  these  words 
an  educator  has  summed  up  his  idea  of  the  purpose  of  an 
education.  Years  before  Pestalozzi  had  formulated  it 
thus:  "The  development  of  human  powers  to  pure 
human  wisdom."  Paulsen  defines  it  thus:  "Spiritual 
self-dependence  of  a  man  upon  the  plane  of  the  culture 
attainable  by  him."  (Kabisch,  4f.)  Or,  as  Paulsen  states 
it  in  his  Piidagogik,  6f:  "Education  consists  in  handing 
down  from  the  parents  to  the  succeeding  generation  the 
ideal  content  of  culture." 

If  we  analyse  we  will  find  that  education  has  two  dis- 
tinct although  inseparable  purposes.  On  the  one  hand 
it  aims  at  the  formation  of  character,  on  the  other  at 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  17 

the  preparation  for  a  useful  life.  The  one  aim  is  personal, 
the  other  is  social.  But  the  two  are  inseparable:  the 
social  aim  can  be  reached  only  through  the  personal,  the 
personal  only  through  the  social.  It  is  of  course  a  patent 
fact  that  there  are  many  useful  citizens  whose  personal 
character  is  exceedingly  faulty,  just  as  there  are  many 
men  and  women  of  personally  beautiful  character  who 
are  socially  inactive.  But  a  general  education  can  neither 
aim  to  produce  professional  politicians  nor  to  develop 
hermits.  Both  of  these  are,  as  it  were,  by-products  of 
education. 

In  America  we  have  a  state-controlled  system  of  public 
education.  For  a  state-school  society  is  practically  synony- 
mous with  the  state,  so  that  we  may  define  the  purpose  of 
education  as  the  training  of  the  child  for  good  and  useful 
citizenship.  The  child  is  to  become  able  through  its  educa- 
tion to  take  an  intelligent  part  in  the  work  of  the  world 
under  the  conditions  which  exist  in  the  particular  country : 
it  is  at  the  same  time  to  be  enabled  to  remain  a  distinct 
personality,  and  not  simply  to  become  a  cog  in  the  imper- 
sonal machinery  of  modern  progress. 

How  this  purpose  must  affect  and  modify  educational 
efforts  in  general,  we  need  not  stop  to  inquire.  Here  we 
are  interested  in  religious  education  and  must  try  to  de- 
termine the  need  and  the  place  of  such  education  within 
the  system  of  general  education. 

An  ethical  question  however  needs  first  to  be  considered. 
Are  we  to  consider  the  problem  of  religious  education  as 
Christians,  as  Church-men,  or  as  citizens?  If  as  Chris- 
tians, then  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  general  prob- 


1 8  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

lem  of  state  education.  We  may,  if  we  so  desire,  with- 
draw our  children  from  the  public  school ;  but  we  cannot 
force  upon  the  public  school  or  upon  education  a  view 
which  is  rooted  and  grounded  only  in  Christianity.  Frank 
in  his  System  of  Ethics  has  stated  the  matter  clearly: 
"Christian  activity  within  a  state,  within  the  civil  society 
which  the  state  embraces,  cannot  possibly  be  so  defined 
that  it  would  always  aim  to  bring  the  Christian  ethos  to 
bear  upon  civil  conditions  and  laws.  On  this  point  there 
are  still  many  mistaken  views  among  Christians.  Men 
think  that  a  Christian  ruler,  a  Christian  authority  must 
immediately  create  'Christian'  institutions  in  the  state, 
e.  g.,  pass  'Christian'  marriage  laws,  establish  'Christian' 
schools,  demand  a  'Christian'  Sunday  observance.  .  .  . 
These  are  well-meant,  but  nonsensical  velleities.  God  did 
not  force  His  Son  upon  the  world,  and  He  does  not  wish 
His  ethos  to  be  impressed  upon  the  world  by  force.  The 
natural  thing  is  that  all  state  institutions  bear  the  char- 
acter of  that  ethos  which  is  the  average  ethos  of  the  com- 
munity." {Sittlichkeit,  II,  445.)  J.  N.  Figgis  has  re- 
cently expressed  the  same  truth:  "As  members  of  the 
State  we  have  to  think  and  to  vote  for  what  is  the  wisest 
course  in  a  nation  of  which  many  of  the  Christians  refuse 
to  submit  to  our  (Church)  discipline,  and  many  are  not 
Christian  at  all.  As  citizens  we  have  no  right  or  claim 
to  appeal  to  motives  or  ideals  specifically  Christian,  or  to 
lay  down  lines  of  policy  which  have  no  meaning  except 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  Catholic  Church.  We  must 
recognize  facts  even  where  we  do  not  like  them." 
(Churches  in  the  Modern  State,  113.)      Not  as  Chris- 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  19 

tians,   but   as   Christian   citizens   must  we   consider  our 
problem. 

But  religious  education  appears  to  many  to  be  a  specific 
function  of  the  Church,  to  be  considered  by  us  as  mem- 
bers of  the  Church.  Religious  education  is  to  be  educa- 
tion for  Church  membership.  This  is  perfectly  true  from 
a  Roman  Catholic  standpoint,  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  is  perfectly  consistent  when  it  maintains  its  pa- 
rochial schools  for  this  definite  form  of  education.  Two 
implications  must  be  remembered  however.  In  the  Roman 
Catholic  system  the  Church  is  the  intermediary  between 
Grod  and  man.  Man  can  know  and  please  God  only 
through  the  Church.  Outside  of  that  specific  Church 
there  is  no  salvation.  Protestants  hold  an  altogether  dif- 
ferent view  of  the  Church  and  cannot  base  their  view 
of  education  for  Church  membership  upon  any  such  theory. 
Furthermore  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  not  at  home 
in  the  modern  world.  Modern  culture  is  for  it  unchris- 
tian. As  its  ideal  it  holds  to  the  culture  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  tries  to  compromise  as  little  as  possible  with 
twentieth  century  culture.  But  this  modern  culture  is 
to  a  large  extent  the  outgrowth  of  the  Protestant  Churches, 
which  claim  that  Christianity  can  flourish  in  every  de- 
velopment of  culture.  If  Protestant  Churches  repudiate 
modern  culture  they  thereby  deny  their  own  right  to  ex- 
istence, for  Protestantism  was  the  modification  of  Chris- 
tianity made  necessary  by  a  changing  culture  in  the  Six- 
teenth Century.  Either  Christianity  can  flourish  in  any 
culture,  or  it  should  not  have  changed  from  the  medieval 
Church. 


20  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

If  modern  culture  is  not  Christian  and  the  Church 
cannot  approve  of  it,  then  we  must  side  not  with  Martin 
Luther,  but  with  the  Viri  obscuri  of  the  sixteenth  century 
and  with  the  pope's  anti-modernism  of  to-day.  Then  our 
only  hope  lies  not  in  religious  education,  but  in  the  de- 
struction of  modern  education.  We  can  keep  our  children 
only  if  we  keep  them  from  the  school  and  from  modern 
thought  and  knowledge. 

But  education  for  Church  membership  is  not,  as  some 
would  have  us  believe,  education  for  life  everlasting. 
Church  membership,  except  on  the  Roman  Catholic  prin- 
ciple, is  purely  an  earthly  thing.  Christians  are  not  saved 
because  they  are  loyal  to  the  Church;  they  become  loyal 
to  the  Church  because  they  are  saved.  No  amount  of 
knowledge  or  of  Church  doctrines  will  save  a  man.  A 
right  understanding  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  statement  that  a  man 
is  saved  by  what  he  is  and  not  by  what  he  knows.  "Faith 
justifies  alone  without  works,  but  faith  is  never  alone," 
is  equivalent  to  saying  that  faith,  which  is  trust  in  God, 
saves  by  making  a  man  a  godly  man.  Education  for 
intelligent  Church  membership  which  is  not  education 
to  character  and  for  modern  life  is  a  logical  impossibility. 
Only  a  shortsighted  policy  on  the  part  of  Churchmen 
would  save  the  Church  by  making  it  unworthy  to  be 
saved.  If  the  Church  does  not  exist  for  the  saving  of 
men  and  of  society  and  of  men  in  society,  but  asks  that  men 
and  society  exist  to  maintain  it  and  must  be  modified 
to  suit  this  purpose,  the  Church  will  merely  lose  its  in- 
fluence and  drag  the  influence  of  the  Gospel,  as  far  as 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  21 

possible,  with  its  own. 

Not  as  Christians,  attempting  to  legislate  Christianity 
into  institutions  or  into  men,  nor  as  Churchmen,  attempt- 
ing to  save  the  Church,  but  as  Christian  citizens  must 
we  consider  the  problems  of  religious  education. 

Is  education  for  intelligent  living  in  our  modern  world 
and  for  the  maintenance  of  an  ethical  personality  in  the 
modern  world  possible  without  religious  education?  Or, 
to  state  the  question  in  the  words  of  Kabisch:  "Does  a 
man  have  a  right  to  a  religious  education?"  Kabisch 
makes  the  answer  depend  upon  our  solution  of  several 
other  questions:  "Is  religion  a  means  of  power  in  the 
battle  for  existence?  Is  it  a  valuable,  perhaps  the  most 
valuable  possession  we  have  in  life?  Or  is  it  a  non- 
essential ornament,  which  can  be  dispensed  with  without 
our  suffering  real  harm  in  life?"  And  Kabisch  replies: 
"He  who  holds  that  religion  is  a  weapon  that  helps 
solve  the  problems  of  life  and  overcome  its  difficulties, 
its  temptations,  its  end,  must  confess:  man  has  a  right  to 
religion,  as  well  as  to  a  roof  that  will  protect  him  against 
wind  and  storm.  This  may  well  be  pondered  by  those 
who  are  all  too  meek  in  their  assertion  of  the  universal 
rights  of  man  and  fear  too  much  the  growth  of  excessive 
power  in  the  state  and  therefore  ascribe  to  the  parents 
the  right  of  leaving  their  children  without  religious  train- 
ing. All  respect  for  the  rights  of  the  parents;  no  one 
compels  them  to  a  faith  which  they  do  not  want;  but 
has  the  child  itself  no  rights?  Does  it  belong  to  the  par- 
ents just  like  a  piece  of  dead  property?  That  were  the 
abolition  of  the  most  elementary  ideas  of  right!"     (ff^ie 


22  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

Lehren  wir  Religion?  p.  2.) 

The  child  unquestionably  has  a  right  to  a  religious 
education,  just  as  it  has  a  right  to  education  in  the  best 
culture  of  the  time.  If  the  Church  excludes  it  from  cul- 
ture, the  Church  is  wrong;  if  the  state  excludes  it  from 
religion,  the  state  is  wrong. 

But  the  difficulty  lies  in  the  reconciliation  of  the  religion 
of  the  Church  with  the  culture  of  the  state.  A  division 
of  education  between  state  and  Church  will  always  be 
unsatisfactory  for  this  reason.  The  very  first  element  of  a 
personality  is  unity.  But  if  the  state  teaches  culture  and 
the  Church  teaches  doctrines  opposed  to  that  culture, 
how  can  the  child  combine  the  two  within  itself?  To 
save  its  personality  it  must  reject  either  culture  or  the 
Church, — and  a  touch  with  culture  is  for  most  men  too 
valuable  and  too  real  a  thing  to  be  rejected. 

Can  religion  and  culture  be  reconciled?  This  is  the 
fundamental  question.  And  here  we  may  grant  that  the 
theology  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the  science  of  the 
twentieth  century  cannot  be  reconciled,  simply  because  the 
sixteenth  century  theology  contains  elements  of  an  out- 
grown culture.  If  this  is  the  inevitable  contrast,  the 
Church  must  take  over  not  only  religious  education,  but 
all  education  for  its  children,  and  will  even  then  lose 
the  majority  of  those  who  will  later  grow  to  understand 
the  real  questions  at  issue.  Sadder  yet,  the  faithful  ones 
will  either  be  weak  in  the  world  of  culture,  forever  unable 
to  reach  the  Brahmans,  or  divided  in  themselves,  unable 
to  reconcile  two  elements  of  their  knowledge,  of  divided 
allegiance  and  at  bottom  dishonest  with  themselves.    Self- 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  23 

interest  in  the  world  will  make  them  accept  the  progress 
of  the  age,  and  self-interest  for  the  future  will  lead  them 
to  accept  the  teachings  of  the  Church.  A  whole-hearted 
allegiance  can  be  given  to  neither,  as  we  can  see  every- 
where in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  of  to-day. 

The  problem  of  the  reconciliation  of  religion,  or  rather 
of  our  religious  conceptions,  with  the  culture  of  our  day 
is  by  no  means  easy  of  solution.  Men  are  struggling  with 
it  and  making  progress.  The  first  and  the  longest  step 
in  the  progress  has  been  merely  a  return  to  Luther.  Faith 
is  trust  in  God:  religion  can  be  summed  up  in  "faith, 
love,  and  trust  in  God  above  all  things."  It  is  a  personal 
attitude,  which  gives  unity  to  a  man's  life  and  a  firm 
anchorage  for  his  soul  in  all  trials.  It  is  in  its  essence 
personal,  or,  if  you  will,  subjective. 

As  we  saw  above,  Luther  could  not  understand  how 
faith  could  be  taught.  The  Word  of  God  could  be  taught, 
the  Spirit  of  God  must  work  faith.  The  result  was  that 
in  time  religion  was  confused  with  the  intellectual  ap- 
prehension of  religious  truth.  But  that  intellectual  ap- 
prehension is  evidently  entirely  distinct  from  the  trust 
in  God  which  is  faith.  They  could  be  confused  only  so 
long  as  there  was  no  conflict  between  the  religious  truths 
so  apprehended  and  scientific  truths,  so  that  all  could  be 
taken  as  given  on  the  authority  of  God.  When  once  re- 
ligious truths  and  scientific  truths  conflict,  intellectual 
belief  cannot  coincide  with  personal  trust.  If  I  believe 
the  Word  of  God  because  I  trust  in  God,  I  must  believe 
all  of  it.  If  I  trust  in  God  because  I  believe  the  Word 
of  God,  I  must  believe  all  of  the  Word  of  God. 


24  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

For  Luther,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Word  of  God  was 
the  promises  of  God.  "For  Luther  the  entire  content  of 
Scripture  including  that  which  concerns  the  true  inner 
attitude  of  the  heart  toward  God  is  Law,  in  so  far  as 
it  comes  to  the  sinner  as  a  demand  upon  him,  and  the 
same  content  including  the  Old  Testament  legal  com- 
mandments is  Gospel,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  promise  of  grace 
for  the  sinner."  (Heim,  Gewissheitsproblem,  250.) 
Luther  does  not  think  of  scientific  or  historical  state- 
ments of  the  Bible,  but  of  the  religious  content  of  the 
Scriptures.  Not  the  book  is  for  him  the  Word  of  God, 
but  the  Law  and  Gospel  of  the  book.  It  was  this  Law 
and  Gospel  which  he  summed  up  in  the  Catechism  as 
sufficient  religious  instruction  for  the  young,  and  of  which 
he  himself  confessed  that  he  had  never  fully  learned  it. 

What  Luther  wanted  therefore  was  a  spiritual  effect 
upon  the  heart  and  life  of  the  child  through  the  Word 
of  God.  As  he  was  neither  psychologist  nor  trained  peda- 
gogue, he  did  not  puzzle  with  the  process  by  which  God 
through  the  Word  works  faith.  This  problem  modern 
educators  and  psychologists  have  undertaken  to  study. 

Their  results  we  may  state  briefly.  Religion  cannot  be 
developed  in  the  child  by  the  teaching  of  facts  as  such, 
by  dogmatic  teaching,  or  by  admonition.  "Certainly  the 
purpose  of  religious  educators  demands  knowledge.  But 
knowledge  has  only  the  value  of  a  means.  The  purpose 
aimed  at  is  the  direction  of  the  heart  and  will  toward 
the  divine."  (Wiese,  quoted  by  Kabisch,  66.)  There  is 
in  every  child  a  religious  tendency:  there  are  experiences 
which  in  their  nature  are  religious.     These  need  to  be 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  25 

interpreted,  to  be  developed,  to  be  correlated  to  the  re- 
ligious experience  of  older  persons  and  of  the  leaders  of 
religious  life  and  thought.  Here  again  Luther's  Catechism 
pointed  the  way.  The  child,  seeing  and  hearing  of  re- 
ligious matters,  is  supposed  to  ask  for  further  guidance 
in  understanding  them,  and  the  father  gives  that  guidance 
by  telling  what  he  knows  and  has  experienced. 

Religious  education  is  therefore  the  training  and  deep- 
ening of  the  religious  life  of  the  child  by  means  of  the 
religious  experience  of  others.  The  Bible  becomes  the 
means  of  religious  instruction  because  in  it  we  have  the 
religious  experiences  of  prophets  and  apostles  which  are 
typical  for  all  time.  Religious  education  is  one  continuous 
process  of  teaching  by  example  and  by  communing  in 
imagination  with  the  saints.  As  God  has  dealt  with  them, 
and  as  they  have  dealt  with  God,  so  we,  although  under 
different  circumstances,  deal  with  God,  and  so  God  deals 
with  us.  "All  the  hours  of  religious  instruction  mean 
only  a  gathering  of  religious  experience  with  the  help  of 
the  imagination.  The  ethical  and  religious  heroes  rise 
before  the  soul  of  the  child,  those  who  gradually  through 
the  darkness  of  obscure  acts  of  worship  prepared  the  way 
for  a  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  (Kabisch, 
113.)  The  purpose  after  all  is  to  lead  the  child  to  wor- 
ship God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  If  there  is  much  which 
would  hinder  such  worship,  which  would  confuse  the  child, 
or  lead  it  to  doubt  and  difficulty,  we  with  our  broader 
knowledge  should  save  the  child  even  if  it  be  at  the  cost 
of  self-denial  to  ourselves.  The  doctrines  of  the  Church, 
the  niceties  of  theology,  are  not  religion:  they  should  be 


26  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

helps  to  religion  and  explanations  of  religion.  When 
they  cease  to  be  helps,  and  as  explanations  of  our  religion 
are  not  true,  it  is  better  to  ignore  them  than  by  asserting 
them  to  destroy  faith,  which  is  trust  in  God. 

The  child  has  a  right  to  religion  and  therefore  to  re- 
ligious education.  Who  shall  educate  the  child  in  religion  ? 
There  is  really  only  one  answer  possible :  whoever  educates 
the  child.  If  the  child  is  educated  at  home,  the  family 
is  the  place  for  religious  education ;  if  the  Church  educates 
the  child,  certainly  the  Church  must  provide  it  with  re- 
ligious education ;  if  the  state  educates  it,  it  is  the  business 
of  the  state  to  educate,  and  not  simply  to  teach:  and  to 
education  religion  is  indispensable. 

How  shall  the  opposition  of  the  Churches  be  overcome? 
Let  us  ask  first,  where  does  the  opposition  of  the  Churches 
come  from?  Naturally  we  think  first  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  But  that  Church  already  has  her  pa- 
rochial schools,  and  teaches  religion  in  them.  It  is  a 
religion  which  is  not  at  home  in  the  modern  world,  which 
is  not  in  sympathy  with  our  modern  democracy.  To  main- 
tain itself  it  needs  the  parochial  school.  But  if  the  Church 
is  wise,  she  will  see  that  a  faith  in  God  helps  her  as  much 
as  it  helps  any  other  Church.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  will  not  protest  against  the  development  of  God- 
fearing character;  what  she  protests  against  is  sectarian 
teaching  which  antagonises  her  distinctive  teaching.  True, 
so  long  as  the  Roman  Church  does  not  look  with  more 
approval  upon  modern  views  of  life,  it  may  be  necessary 
to  maintain  parochial  schools.  But  the  state  should  in  all 
fairness  to  Roman  Catholic  citizens  maintain  these  schools 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  27 

and  maintain  in  them  the  same  standard  of  instruction  as 
is  maintained  in  the  Public  School. 

*'The  Protestant  Churches  cannot  agree  upon  a  purely 
religious,  non-denominational  instruction  in  religion."  To 
hold  that  this  is  a  final  attitude  of  the  Protestant  Churches, 
would  be  to  admit  that  the  Churches  are  more  concerned 
for  themselves  than  for  the  children.  To  argue  that  the 
Churches  would  be  disloyal  to  the  truth  they  have,  if  they 
admitted  a  non-denominational  training  in  religion,  is  to 
place  intellectual  formulation  of  the  truth  higher  than 
religion  itself.  In  fact,  the  Church  can  expect  an  intelli- 
gent appreciation  of  its  distinctive  teachings  only  upon  the 
basis  of  a  common  Christian  faith,  i.  e.,  upon  the  founda- 
tion of  a  religious  experience  such  as  can  be  gained  and 
developed  by  a  study  of  the  dealings  of  God  with  men 
and  of  men  with  God  apart  from  the  doctrines  and 
dogmas  of  the  Church. 

If  our  Churches  had  this  foundation  in  a  common  Chris- 
tian faith,  or  if  you  will,  in  a  common  Christian  religious 
experience,  the  Churches  could  train  their  younger  mem- 
bers for  intelligent  and  active  Church  membership,  where- 
as now  it  is  confessedly  difficult  for  the  Churches  to  do 
any  educational  work  among  the  masses  of  their  member- 
ship. 

Dietrich  Vorwerk  in  his  book,  Kann  auch  ein  Pastor 
selig  werdenf  writes,  (p.  82) :  "Not  the  Impartation  of 
a  system  of  dogmatics  is  the  aim  of  instruction,  but  educa- 
tional development  of  Christian  personalities  by  means 
of  drawing  them  to  Jesus."  However  we  may  otherwise 
disagree  among  ourselves  and  with  Vorwerk,  this  defini- 


28  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 

tlon  of  the  aim  of  religious  education  can  be  generally 
accepted.  If  we  add  to  it  the  principle  stated  by  Stange 
in  his  little  work  on  Christentum  und  moderne  Weltan- 
schauung, p.  3:  "The  representatives  of  Christianity 
would  not  do  justice  to  their  task,  if  they  wanted  to  see 
in  the  modern  world-view  nothing  but  an  evil  and  a 
danger.  Whoever  emphasises  history  as  much  as  Chris- 
tianity does,  cannot  desire  to  become  'geschichtslos,'  "  we 
shall  have  the  two  fundamental  principles  which  must 
guide  us  in  our  study  of  the  problem  of  religious  educa- 
tion: the  development  of  religious  Christian  personalities 
able  to  take  their  place  in  the  modern  world. 

The  application  of  these  principles,  it  is  true,  is  no 
simple  matter.  It  involves  a  general  'reform'  of  our 
schools  in  more  ways  than  one.  And,  although  it  were 
easy  to  indicate  some  of  the  reforms  that  seem  indispen- 
sable, it  is  perhaps  worth  while  in  America  to  consider 
what  the  Germans  are  contending  for:  the  management 
of  schools  by  educators  without  interference  either  from 
ignorant  citizens,  even  if  they  be  officers  of  the  State,  or 
from  pedagogically  untrained  and  inexperienced  pastors. 
Reukauf  boldly  asserts  that  the  school  can  be  freed  from 
the  oppressive  influence  of  'Bureaukratismus'  and  the 
Church  "only  by  a  thorough  reform  of  the  entire  school- 
management,  only  by  freeing  the  school  completely  from 
the  supremacy  of  the  Church,  and  by  developing  its  organ- 
ization freely  according  to  its  own  distinctive  nature." 
{Didaktik,  15.)  In  America  we  know  nothing  of  a 
supremacy  of  the  Church,  but  we  do  know  that  the  school 
is  as  yet  very  imperfectly  organized  and  managed,  and 


RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  29 

that  a  clear  recognition  of  educational  principles  and  needs 
is  exceedingly  rare,  even  among  teachers  themselves.  The 
reform  must  come  by  raising  the  standard  of  our  teachers, 
making  them  to  be  educators,  requiring  that  they  be  peda- 
gogically  trained  and  able  to  cope  with  the  problems  of 
their  profession. 

Beyond  this  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  go.  Even  a  thor- 
oughly trained  and  experienced  educator  tells  us,  that  he 
has  no  completed  scheme  of  reform  in  his  pocket:  "he 
who  comes  with  such  a  scheme  does  not  recognize  the 
historical  factor  in  our  educational  system,  promises  more 
than  he  can  fulfill,  and  is — consciously  or  unconsciously — 
a  charlatan."     (Th.  Ziegler,  Allgemeine  Padagogikj  4.) 


FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  CHURCH 


For  the  Healing  of  the  Church 


A  GERMAN  writer  has  described  present-day 
conditions  in  philosophy  thus:  "To-day  we 
have  no  single  philosophical  stream,  which 
commands  all  the  others,  or  receives  them  all 
into  itself  as  contributory  streams,  and  guides  them  into 
one  mighty  channel;  but  numerous  streams  of  thought 
which  flow  on  in  their  own  strength,  regardless  of  whence 
and  whither,  as  if  they  were  alone  on  the  earth."  "We 
are  fertile  in  the  coining  of  useable,  attractive  formulas, 
but  hip-shot  in  the  production  of  full-grown  systems  and 
deep  philosophies.  One  world-formula  chases  the  other  in 
confusing  restlessness."  "We  lack  a  central  personality, 
a  Leibniz  or  a  Kant." 

It  seems  that  the  sectarianism  so  prominent  in  the 
Church  has  found  its  way  into  philosophy.  The  'schools,' 
many  in  number  and  with  comparatively  few  adherents 
to  each,  remind  one  strongly  of  the  'sects,'  which  spring 
up  so  rapidly  that  none  has  an  opportunity  to  grow  strong. 
But  there  are  vital  differences  between  schools  of  phi- 
losophy and  sects  in  religion.  In  philosophy  a  strong  per- 
sonality may  succeed  in  forming  a  new  school  which  shall 
swallow  up  or  wipe  out  the  older  schools,  as  some  re- 
viewers tell  us  that  Bergson  is  apt  to  do.  The  Church 
needs  more  than  a  'central  personality,'  if  the  sects  are 
to  be  united.     One  consideration  will  suffice  to  suggest 

33 


34    FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  CHURCH 

the  reason.  Philosophy  and  philosophical  schools  have 
never  been  outwardly  organized,  as  the  Church  and  the 
sects  have  been.  To  break  up  a  philosophical  school  it  is 
enough  that  a  new  leader  gain  the  adherence  of  the  phi- 
losophers composing  it,  or  that  the  old  leader  lose  their 
adherence;  but  a  religious  sect  has  a  permanent  organiza- 
tion, which  may  remain  in  spite  of  a  change  of  leader  and 
a  change  in  teaching. 

Like  a  political  party,  the  sect  may  lose  all  or  almost  all 
the  distinctive  features  which  were  its  justification  at  first, 
and  yet  retain  all  its  opposition  to  the  party  it  opposed 
because  of  them. 

The  political  analogy  suggests  a  deeper  difference,  how- 
ever. Political  parties  stand  for  different  views  on  prob- 
lems which  no  higher  authority  has  solved.  But  higher 
than  the  party  is  the  State.  Each  party  knows  that  it  is 
the  party  and  not  the  State.  But  each  sect  may  claim  to 
be  the  Church.  The  political  party  serves  the  State,  and 
the  State  is  a  definite  organization  apart  from  the  party. 
But  the  sect  serves  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  that  is  not 
organized  here  on  earth,  so  that  each  can  claim  to  be  the 
only  representative,  or  at  least  the  only  true  representative 
of  it  on  earth. 

This  is  indeed  the  characteristic  mark  of  the  sect,  which 
has  given  rise  to  the  name  and  odium  of  sectarianism.  It 
is  the  denial  of  the  many-sidedness  of  truth,  the  claim  that 
in  one  formula  all  truth  can  be  expressed  for  all  time,  and 
that  no  other  expression  can  be  given  to  it;  that  truth,  to 
be  seen  at  all,  must  be  seen  from  one  angle  and  from  no 
other.    Take  this  attitude  from  a  sect,  and  the  evil  feature 


FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  CHURCH    35 

of  it  is  gone.  But  so  is  also  the  right  of  any  one  Church 
to  claim  for  itself  that  it  is  the  Church.  There  are  no 
longer  sects,  but  Churches.  Each  may  claim  that  it,  more 
than  the  others,  sees  clearly  what  the  Kingdom  of  God 
is  and  ought  to  be  on  earth,  yet  none  can  claim  to  be  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 

Viewed  in  this  light,  the  responsibility  for  sectarianism 
lies  with  that  Church  which  first  organized  as  the  King- 
dom of  God  on  earth,  and  insisted  upon  the  right  to  be 
that  Kingdom  of  God  in  spite  of  all  aberration  from  the 
standards  of  the  Kingdom.  If  we  ask:  What  led  it  into 
such  aberration?  the  answer  is  simple.  It  raised  a  non- 
fundamental  element  to  the  position  of  a  fundamental 
element,  and  gradually  came  to  consider  it  the  essential 
element. 

This  has  been  the  history  of  Churches  ever  since.  The 
characteristic  and  distinctive  doctrines  have  been  debatable, 
but  have  been  for  that  very  reason  turned  into  dogmas. 
The  Primacy  of  Peter,  the  Apostolic  Succession,  the  form 
of  organization,  presbyterial,  congregational,  episcopal, 
the  mode  of  Baptism,  the  method  of  Conversion,  the  rela- 
tion of  the  Sunday  to  the  Sabbath :  these  are  the  distinctive 
dogmas  of  the  organized  Churches.  The  interpretation  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  the  mark  and  seal  of  the  unity  of  the 
Church  has  become  the  cause  of  great  separations,  the 
occasion,  it  might  almost  be  said,  of  all  the  modern  sects, 
or  Churches. 

There  is  however  another  side  to  the  history  of 
Churches.  There  have  been  times  of  wanton  sect-found- 
ing, but  the  large  majority  of  Churches  have  grown  out 


36    FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  CHURCH 

of  a  protest  against  an  error  or  a  lack  in  the  Church. 
Around  this  protest  have  grown  up  other  peculiarities, 
due  to  the  separation  and  the  necessity  of  building  up  a 
distinctive  Church  life.  This  distinctive  life  is  a  far 
greater  barrier  to  Church  union  than  the  distinctive 
doctrines.  For  after  all  the  doctrines  are  largely  a  matter 
of  the  schools  and  the  pastors,  but  the  life  divides  the 
people. 

In  theory  it  would  be  easy  to  criticise  the  Church  for 
allowing  these  separations.  Unquestionably  no  State  would 
do  what  the  Church  has  done.  And  yet  political  narrow- 
ness has  not  been  unknown.  A  democrat  has  little  hope 
in  Russia.  And  just  as  Russia  cannot  endure  a  democrat, 
so  the  Church  cannot  endure  within  it  a  body  of  men  who 
deny  the  distinctive  doctrine  of  the  Church.  The  Re- 
formers could  not  stay  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  after  they 
denied  the  very  facts  on  which  the  Church  of  Rome  was 
built.  The  Presbyterians  could  not  stay  in  the  Church 
of  England,  when  they  denied  the  rights  of  bishops,  upon 
which  that  Church  was  founded.  And  in  each  case  the 
older  organization  could  not  accept  the  criticism  without 
ceasing  to  be  what  it  had  grown  to  be,  and  so  denying  the 
element  of  truth  contained  in  its  own  organization.  The 
Church  has  needed  both  the  position  and  the  criticism. 

And  the  Church  has  always  needed  two  other  elements : 
authority  and  freedom.  The  co-ordination  of  these  two 
has  been  its  real  problem,  and  it  is  still  unsolved. 

Authority  is  of  two  kinds:  the  one  attaches  to  a  class 
or  a  person  or  an  institution,  and  is  claimed  as  a  right; 
the  other  is  given  freely  because  of  inherent  worth.     The 


FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  CHURCH    37 

one  is  the  authority  of  an  aristocracy,  the  other  the  author- 
ity of  democracy.  Historically  the  aristocratic  conception 
has  grown  out  of  the  democratic.  A  man  or  an  institution 
was  acknowledged  by  the  people  because  of  some  inherent 
appeal,  and  then  this  acknowledgment  was  demanded  as 
an  inherent  right.  This  progress  from  inherent  worth  to 
inherent  right,  from  the  appeal  to  men's  judgment  to  the 
silencing  of  men's  judgment,  seems  inevitable.  In  the 
Church  it  is  inseparable  from  the  necessity  of  organiza- 
tion. No  Church  can  be  organized  without  some  prin- 
ciples of  organization,  and  no  Church  can  be  maintained 
without  holding  fast  to  the  principles  upon  which  it  was 
organized.  The  free  confession  of  the  fathers  becomes 
the  binding  obligation  of  the  sons;  the  son  who  rejects  it 
is  considered  a  renegade. 

The  Churches  which  have  organized  on  the  principle 
of  aristocratic  authority,  the  State  Churches, — and  the 
Roman  Church  is  still  a  State  Church  in  theory, — arc 
the  more  uniform  and  least  divided  in  organization,  but 
can  permit  a  greater  divergency  of  doctrinal  position  than 
the  democratic  Churches.  The  latter  are  erratic  in  organ- 
ization, but  conservative  in  doctrine;  when  they  lose  this 
conservatism  in  doctrine,  the  very  foundations  of  their 
being  are  shaken,  there  is  left  only  an  organization  which 
knows  not  what  to  do. 

The  aristocratic  Church  is  theoretically  always  a  State 
Church.  Even  in  America  the  Church  of  Rome  must 
claim  authority  over  all  the  people  of  the  State,  and  the 
high-Church  Episcopalian  must  assert  a  like  authority. 
It  readily  falls  into  the  evils  of  formalism  and  ceremony 


38    FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  CHURCH 

ialism. 

The  democratic  Church  must  maintain  its  standard  of 
worthiness,  or  lose  the  support  and  respect  of  men.  The 
very  differences  which  have  split  it  into  fragments,  must 
be  such  as  to  deserve  respect  from  the  body  of  the 
Churches.  Then  the  Churches  can  continue  in  their 
separate  existence,  and  yet  be  mutually  helpful  and  co- 
operative. The  recognition  that  no  Church  is  the  King- 
dom of  God,  but  that  all  are  of  the  Kingdom,  this  is  the 
great  truth  which  each  needs  to  learn,  that  all  may  grow 
to  be  one  in  purpose,  although  divided  in  methods  and  in 
organization. 

This  will  require,  it  may  be,  a  change  in  the  educa- 
tional work  of  our  Churches.  Most  of  the  Churches  in  our 
country,  although  manifestly  democratic  in  their  prin- 
ciples and  in  their  origin,  are  aristocratic  in  their  methods. 
The  fear  of  losing  men  has  led  them  to  shield  men  from 
problems:  it  has  brought  them  to  the  teaching  of  results 
to  be  accepted  on  authority,  rather  than  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  problems,  and  so  to  the  formation  of  intelligent 
convictions.  They  have  come  to  the  people  with  a  claim 
to  be  heard  and  believed,  rather  than  with  that  attitude 
of  reasonableness,  which  says:  "Come,  let  us  reason  to- 
gether." And  it  has  been  this  attitude,  not  supported  by 
the  aristocratic  theory  of  the  State  Church,  which  has 
been  the  weakness  of  Protestantism  and  the  fertile  soil  of 
sects. 

In  our  day  the  suggestion  is  frequently  heard,  that  the 
remedy  will  be  found  in  a  secularisation  of  the  Church, 
that  is,  the  Church  must  become  a  social  force,  or  at  least 


FOR  THE  HEALING  OF  THE  CHURCH    39 

more  a  social  force  and  less  a  religious  force.  It  must 
appeal  less  to  the  individual,  more  to  the  classes:  draw 
men,  not  one  by  one,  but  by  societies  and  unions.  It 
must,  perhaps  the  matter  can  be  put  thus,  preach  less 
duty,  more  rights.  It  must  learn  from  the  French  Revo- 
lution, and  not  solely  from  the  Bible.  And  many  there 
are  who  find  the  teachings  of  the  French  Revolution  in 
the  Bible. 

Almost  a  hundred  years  ago  the  theologian  and  phi- 
losopher whose  influence  can  be  traced  throughout  the 
whole  century  suggested  another  remedy:  "We  should 
not  have  so  much  occasion  to  complain  of  the  increasing 
spirit  of  sectarianism  and  factious  pious  associations,  if 
there  were  not  so  many  ministers  who  do  not  under- 
stand man's  religious  needs  and  emotions,  because  their 
stand-point  is  in  general  too  low.  Hence  come  also  the 
paltry  views  which  are  frequently  uttered,  when  men 
speak  of  the  means  by  which  the  so-called  decay  of  re- 
ligion is  to  be  remedied.  It  is  an  opinion,  which  will 
perhaps  find  little  approval,  but  which  I  cannot  keep  back, 
that  the  best  remedy  for  this  evil  would  be  nothing  else 
than  a  deeper  speculative  education.  But  the  need  of 
such  education  is  not  admitted  by  most  ministers  and 
those  who  superintend  the  education  of  ministers,  because 
of  the  delusion,  that  it  would  make  ministers  only  so 
much  more  impractical." 


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